Heroes of the Storm Patch Notes — November 14, 2017

The latest update for the Heroes of the Storm brings our newest Support Hero,
Alexstrasza, and the Dragons of the Nexus event quest to the Nexus, as well as
a rework for Li Li, new cosmetic items, and more!

General

Dragons of the Nexus Event Quest

A host of new portrait rewards are ready to swoop into your collection as our
Dragons of the Nexus event takes flight! The event kicks off Tuesday, November
14, and lasts until December 11, so be sure to login and complete the quests
below to start claiming your rewards.

Login Reward

Quest: Log in to Heroes of the Storm during the Dragons of the Nexus event.

Reward: Stained Glass Alexstrasza and Hanzo Portrait

3 Part Quest Chain

Play Heroes of the Storm in Versus AI, Quick Match, Ranked, or Unranked to advance quest progress. Only one part will be active at any time, and each quest must be completed in order.

New Hero: Alexstrasza

Alexstrasza, the queen of dragons, was empowered by the titans to be the
guardian of all life on Azeroth. She has aided mortals time and again, even at
great personal cost. Now, she soars across the Nexus, protecting life wherever
she finds it.

Trait

Dragonqueen

After 1.25 seconds, transform into a dragon and gain 500 Health. While Dragonqueen is active, Alexstrasza's Basic Abilities are empowered, her Basic Attacks deal 143 damage and heal allied Heroes for 43 in an arc in front of her, and the duration of incoming Slows, Roots, Blinds, and Stuns is reduced by 50%. Lasts 15 seconds.

Basic Abilities

Gift of Life (Q)

Sacrifice 15% of Alexstrasza's current Health, healing an ally for 150% of that amount.

Dragonqueen: Breath of Life cooldown greatly reduced and does not cost Health.

Abundance (W)

Plant a seed of healing that blooms after 3 seconds, healing nearby allied Heroes for 20% of their maximum Health.

Dragonqueen: Preservation heal area and amount greatly increased.

Flame Buffet (E)

Launch a fireball, Burning enemies hit for 75 damage over 5.5 seconds.Hitting enemies that are already Burning deals 125 bonus damage upon impact, Slows them by 40% decaying over 2 seconds, and refunds the Mana cost.

Dragonqueen: Wing Buffet damage and Knockback enemies in an arc.

Heroic Abilities

Life-Binder (R)

Bind Alexstrasa's life force with an allied Hero. After 2 seconds, the Hero with a lower percentage of Health is set to the same Health percentage as the other Hero..

Cleansing Flame (R)

After 1.25 seconds, take to the sky and drop fireballs at the position of your mouse cursor every 1.2 seconds for 6 seconds. Each fireball restores 300 Health to nearby allied Heroes, and deals 150 damage to nearby enemies.2 seconds after dropping all fireballs, Alexstrasza lands at the position of your mouse cursor.

Battlegrounds

​Bloodlust Brawl

All Minions, Mercs, and the Dragon Knight now have permanent Bloodlust.

Developer Comment: When looking at this Brawl, we really love the
Bloodlust buff. By powering up the Players and the Dragon Knight so much, the
poor Minions really struggled to provide much value during the Brawl. In order
to bring them up to speed with their Mercenary buddies, we’ve decided that all
Minions could use permanent Bloodlust as well.

User Interface

Volskaya Foundry objective UI will now display “Contested” text when members of both teams are actively fighting over a capture point.

Core

Notifications that indicate when the allied Core is under attack have been made more apparent.

Talent Tier Advantage Callouts

In-game chat messages will now automatically appear for all players when a team reaches levels 10 and 20 in order to more clearly indicate when one team has a Heroic Ability or Storm Talent tier advantage over the other.

A follow-up message will appear when the second team reaches levels 10 and 20 to indicate that Heroic Abilities or Storm Talents are now available to both teams.

Healing Brew heals for an additional amount over 3 seconds. While Fast Feet is active, this amount is increased by 100%.

Lightning Serpent (W)

New functionality:

Cloud Serpent attacks bounce to 2 nearby Heroes for 50% damage.

Cleanse (Active)

Removed

(New Talent) Let's Go!

Activate to heal allied Hero for a small amount and make them unstoppable for 1 second. 40 second cooldown. The cooldown of this ability is affected by Fast Feet.

Level 13

Elusive Feet (Trait)

Removed

Hindering Winds (E)

Moved to Level 4

Slow amount increased to 30%.

Surging Winds (E)

New functionality:

If at least two targets of Blinding Wind are Heroes, gain 10 Spellpower for 10 seconds and reduce the cooldown of Blinding Wind by 3 seconds.

Shrink Ray (Active)

Removed

Level 16

Shake It Off (Trait)

Moved to Level 20

New functionality:

While Fast Feet is active, gain 8 Armor per second, to a maximum of 30 armor.

Safety Sprint (Active)

Moved to Level 4

New functionality:

Activate to gain Fast Feet and increase its movement speed bonus to 30% for 2 seconds. 30 second cooldown.

Serpent Sidekick (W)

Moved to Level 4

New functionality:

Each time a Cloud Serpent attacks a Hero, its duration is increased by .5 seconds.

(New Talent) Pick Me Up (Q)

Healing Brew heals for 33% more if the target is under 50% life.

(New Talent) Blessings of Yu'lon (W)

Cloud Serpent attacks heal its bearer for an additional 1.5% of their maximum life.

Level 20

Kung Fu Hustle (Trait)

Removed

Storm Shield (Active)

Removed

(New Talent) Mistweaver (Active)

Activate to heal all nearby Allies. 30 second cooldown. The cooldown of this ability is reduced by 1 second each time you or your cloud serpent attacks.

LEVEL (TIER)

Li Li Talents

1 (1)

Free Drinks (Q)

Wind Serpent (W)

Eager Adventurer (Trait)

4 (2)

Serpent Sidekick (W)

Hindering Winds (E)

Safety Sprint (Trait)

7 (3)

The Good Stuff (Q)

Lightning Serpent (W)

Let's Go! (Active)

10 (4)

Jug of 1,000 Cups

Water Dragon

—

—

13 (5)

Gale Force (E)

Surging Winds (E)

Mass Vortex (E)

16 (6)

Two for One (Q)

Pick Me Up (Q)

Blessings of Yu'lon (W)

20 (7)

Jug of 1,000,000 Cups (R)

Double Dragon (R)

Mistweaver (Active)

Shake It Off (Trait)

(!) indicates a Questing Talent.

Italic text indicates a NEW Talent.

Bold text indicates a MOVED Talent.

Developer Comment: Li Li is one of our oldest Heroes and has remained
relatively unchanged since her debut in 2014. With this rework, we wanted to
preserve her relative mechanical simplicity, but give her other ways to show
mastery of game knowledge. Additionally, we wanted to expand upon her fantasy
of being the enthusiastic sidekick who’s not afraid to put herself in danger
to save her allies. With the new cooldown reduction mechanic on her trait, Li
Li players are encouraged to dart in and out of skirmishes, taking just enough
damage to keep her trait up. The longer she can keep her trait up, the more
ability casts she gets, pushing her into a powerful sustain support role. With
this mechanic she can also bully enemies that lack sustained damage; slowly
forcing them out of lanes or off objectives. However, she’s fairly vulnerable
to crowd control since she relies so heavily on frequent spell casts to
survive. One well timed stun or silence can shut down an overly reckless Li
Li. We’re aware that her Blinding Wind damage build was popular and that many
players preferred her in that role, but we felt it was inappropriate for Li Li
to put out the numbers she did while still providing decent support for her
team. In general, we’re nudging our supports away from being as effective as
Assassins or Specialists in terms of damage and wave clear potential. Li Li
can still put out impressive numbers for a support, but it should be much more
predicated on her ability to position properly and keep her trait up, rather
than simply being constant oppressive force.